


Possibilities in Basic Space

by schneestern



Category: Bandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Community: bandombigbang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-11
Updated: 2010-06-11
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:27:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3112973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schneestern/pseuds/schneestern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Used are on tour, checked into a hotel, when suddenly an unknown virus breaks loose, turning ordinary people into bloodthirsty zombies. Their only chance is to make it to the tour bus and escape. One of them might die, but there is always more than one possible scenario to a story. </p><p>Warnings: Temporary main character death, depiction of mass panic, as well as zombie-related gore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibilities in Basic Space

**A**

“Fuck this motherfucking shit.”

Dan hurls his cell phone into the back seat, a small part of him wishing it would break with a satisfying crack. It doesn't, of course, but he calms down a little, just thinking about the possibility of it.

The hood of the jeep is warm against his back, but the wind is picking up again and he has no fucking clue where the hell he is. Or why the fuck he didn't bring a warm jacket, for that matter. Dan had only planned a quick food run, maybe some pancakes or whatever else this town had to offer.

But then he got lost on the streets crisscrossing in complicated mathematical patterns and ended up on a highway with no fucking exits to get him away from the damn thing and back to the city. So he'd been forced to drive straight ahead, knowing he was headed in the wrong direction.

Dan had said the word _fuck_ so often in the last hour it had lost all meaning.

Maddeningly, it had also firmly lodged that one song in his head he and Quinn had once thought up, when they were bored, trying to use as many curses as possible in one silly tune.

It starts raining, a thin drizzle the wind blows in his face, and Dan starts pacing next to his car just because he needs something to fucking do while he thinks.

He'd pulled over on a hard shoulder, trying to figure out where to go or what to do. Then he'd called Jeph, but the asshole hadn't answered his phone. Neither had Bert or Quinn for that matter, but that really hadn't been a surprise. Jeph, though, he always answers his phone, because he's an obsessive freak and Dan wonders what the hell is keeping him from it.

Of course he also wonders how the hell he'll get off this fucking highway. It doesn't look like he'll be able to drive off any time soon. He's half tempted to drive through the acres of barren land stretching out next to the road until he hits some little road that'll take him back into town. What keeps him from doing it is the fact that he borrowed the car off of a roadie, who in turn had borrowed it from a friend in town, and it barely looked like it could take a road, let alone rocky countryside.

Eventually, Dan gets back into the car, hair now damp with rain, and fumbles for his phone on the backseat. He calls Jeph again but he still doesn't answer.

Dan starts the car and drives back onto the crappy highway. Up ahead some rays of sunshine struggle through the clouds, making the wet asphalt sparkle. It would be a really nice morning if it weren't for the fact that Dan's hungry, lost and pissed off. This is the last time he'll make a food run. Next time he'll have Bert and Quinn do it. At least when they get lost they always manage to come back with awesome food.

At this point Dan's pretty sure he won't even come back with any food, let alone awesome food.

Dan kicks the car into a higher gear, speeding up. The street is completely empty in front of him. Now that he thinks about it he hasn't seen a single car since he got on this godforsaken highway. It's weird, Dan's never been to places this big where there wasn't at least one other car going his direction. Not that he doesn't like the freedom of driving in whatever lane he wants. Dan's pretty sure he'd start killing people if he actually got in a traffic jam here, but the emptiness on a morning in the middle of the week unsettles him.

Jeph would probably laugh at him for worrying more than Jeph himself, who claims it's his main job in the band. But Dan knows when to trust his instincts, he's seen enough catastrophe movies to know when earthquakes, super volcanoes or flash floods are imminent and an empty street on such a beautiful morning is, well, pretty ominous.

Dan is so caught up in his thoughts of impending doom that he nearly misses the road sign pointing to an exit. As he drives past it, he almost chalks it off as a hallucination his exasperated mind has sprung on him, but a few moments later he can see two roads up ahead. One leads away from the highway and the other one merging back on to the lane going back into town.

“Fuck, yeah,” he shouts, pumping his fist up against the roof of the car.

Driving off the highway, he takes the turns so sharply the car screeches loudly against the abuse. Dan doesn't care. He's had about enough of this fucking trip and is ready to get back to the hotel room and Jeph, who will no doubt make fun of him for days, but still organize him some food, a thought which sounds really appealing right about now.

Dan's stomach rumbles loudly as he swerves onto the highway back into the city. It's just as empty as the one going the other direction and with the sun now behind him and dark clouds up ahead, Dan can't quite shake the unease that settles on the quiet car. He tries the stereo again but he only gets static, just like he did right before he got lost.

The radio must be broken.

*

The first buildings of the city appear on the horizon just as Dan's starting to think he somehow managed to get back on the road out of town. He knows it would make no fucking sense, but by now he's so fed up with this whole expedition he wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out he'd circled the city for hours.

It's with a relieved sigh when he finally sees the city's buildings creep up in the distance, growing taller and closer fast. He still hasn't encountered a car, but by now he's chalked it up to some marathon blocking the streets or a parade or whatever the fuck people in this town do all day.

He tries to remember when they sound check for the show tonight and where the hell he put his extra sticks. A pair got lost in some dubious business involving Bert and Quinn and a tomato, so he'll have to find the spare ones if he wants to throw a set out into the crowd. Not that his morning's adventure is making him very inclined to, but Dan figures people who actually have to live in this fucking place, where highways are one way streets of no return, they might appreciate some drumsticks he sweated on.

Dan looks at the passenger seat, trying to find where his phone fell after he tossed it earlier. It must've slipped down into the foot space, because he can't find it. He takes another look at the road then leans down and over, groping around blindly trying, to find it. A quick glance on the road to check he's still in the right lane, not that there's any other car to hit, and then he looks down and immediately spots his phone, lying a half inch away from his fingertips. He grabs it and straightens up in time to see the three men standing in the middle of the highway.

Dan hits the brakes as hard as he can, but he's already too late. The man standing in the middle, right in the way of Dan's car, looks at Dan with a blank expression right up until he hits the windshield with a deafening crack. There's another dull thump as he flies over the roof, and then Dan's hitting the brakes and the car's spinning to a halt.

There's a deathly silence except for the wind whipping around the car.

The motor slowly ticks as it cools off and for long moments, his heart racing, Dan dumbly stares at his hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.

In his head, he hears Quinn's voice singing the Fuck Song before his higher brain functions return and it dawns on him that he's _hit_ someone with his car, for which he doesn't even have a permit. Then he realizes he might have actually killed the guy and that's what finally makes him move.

Dan jumps out into the fresh air, wind immediately tugging at his shirt, making goosebumps crawl up his arms. A few yards behind the car he sees not only the man he hit lying face down on the asphalt, but the other two lying next to him.

Dan could swear on everything that's holy to him that he only hit the one man, that he never even touched the other two, yet they're all lying in the middle of the highway. He hesitates for another moment, something keeping him from getting closer, but it's slowly starting to rain harder now and if the man needs first aid, he needs it right now.

Pushing all other doubts from his mind, Dan steps closer and kneels next to the man, and slowly turns him on his side. His face is covered in blood; he must have slid over the hard surface of the road after landing. Dan has to swallow hard, tries not to think that _he_ did this. Carefully, he puts the man into a stable position then feels for a pulse.

There's nothing.

Dan tries again, first on the wrist and then on the side of the throat, but there's still nothing, no heartbeat, no pulse.

The man is dead.

He sits back on his heels and looks up into the sky, takes a deep breath. “Fuck,” he says slowly, listening to the word as it gets carried away by the wind. And then he remembers the other two men. Dan turns around where he's crouching and looks at them.

The other two men, in their early thirties maybe, definitely older than the one Dan hit with his car, are lying flat on their backs. Their eyes have a milky sheen to them and they look up at the sky, unblinking. One of them has deep scratches down the side of his face that look like claw marks.

For some reason Dan's reluctant to move toward them, check on them. He knows, knows for fucking sure, that couldn't have hit them with his car as well. Even if he hit the first guy and grazed the second one there's no way in hell he could have touched the third one too, not with his small car.

And yet here they are, lying motionless, probably dead. Dan curses himself for being such a pussy and finally moves up to them, checking on the pulse of the guy with the scratches on his face, then on the pulse of the other man. From up close he can see that man has claw marks too, right over his belly and rips and tears in his shirt.

Maybe they'd been chasing a wild animal or running from it. Maybe that's why they had been on the highway in the first place. It seems like a logical explanation but deep down Dan knows that something doesn't quite add up. Certainly not the fact that he's sitting between three dead men, only one of whom he hit with his car.

Dan gets up after checking without a doubt that the two men are dead too. His head spins a little from straightening up too fast. He backs away, just a few steps to put distance between himself and the men. The corpses. As the rain picks up, staining their clothes, Dan stands there, looking at them, not sure what the fuck he's supposed to do now.

He can't leave them here in the middle of the highway, no matter how deserted it is. The cops would probably consider that a hit and run. A triple hit and run, Dan thinks hysterically, then tries to calm himself down. If he panics now, he knows, he'll end up doing something stupid. Or, well, stupider than standing next to three corpses twiddling his thumbs.

The only possible option, Dan realizes, is to take the bodies with him. He stares at them and thinks about what it will be like to drag three corpses to his car, cram them in the backseat and then drive them to the next police station. It makes his skin crawl but he can't think of anything else to do. He can hardly drag them to the side of the road and just leave them there.

The very thought of having to touch any of these dead men is making him squeamish, so Dan decides to go back to his car and call for help first and decide on a course of action second. Maybe if he calls into the police anonymously they can help him figure out a way to proceed.

Dan walks to the car, shuddering a little against the wet and the cold. The car door on the driver's side is a little stuck and he has to pull hard, almost falling backwards when the door suddenly gives and opens. He leans over the stick and fumbles for his phone on the passenger seat.

Maybe he should skip the call to the police and call Jeph. He always knows what to do in situations like these.

Thoughtfully, Dan stares ahead at the buildings by the side of the highway as they merge into the downtown area further along, when a movement in the rearview mirror catches his eye. He focuses his gaze on the mirror, but there's nothing there. He has to smile at himself for being so fucking paranoid and looks down to scroll through his phone book, looking for Jeph's number. Bert programs it under a different, stupid name every other week and Dan can't for the life of him remember which one it is right now, even though he probably called Jeph like three times in the past hour. He blames it on the freaky accident.

Suddenly, he hears a noise, a rough sound and something that sounds suspiciously like a groan. He looks up, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror automatically.

The face of the man he ran over is looking back at him, milky white eyes dead and unblinking. His mouth is open and blood is bubbling out of it.

Dan screams, because seriously, what the fuck.

His phone starts ringing just as the fucker starts moving. Dan whirls around and sees the man, the _thing_ advancing, just as the two other guys on the asphalt, who were dead, fucking dead as fuck just seconds before, start moving as well.

“This is not fucking happening to me,” Dan mumbles, before he presses the accept call button on his phone, backing away from the guy walking towards him. It's more of a slow shuffle, but Dan wants to keep a safe distance.

Then he remembers he's actually just answered the phone. “Yes, fuck, hello?” The person on the other end, whoever it is, is silent, but Dan can hear them breathing. It's creepy but really not as creepy as the two guys getting up from the asphalt slowly, where they were dead just seconds before, and start walking in Dan's general direction too.

“Hello?” Dan says again, “Who's there? Listen--”

He looks around for a weapon as he talks, anything at all really. He sees a stone by the side of the highway and bends down to grab it, never taking his eyes of the dead guys. Phone still pressed to his ear, he draws his arm back and throws.

The stone misses the dead guy he was aiming for and bounces off of one of the side mirrors. The glass breaks with a definitive sound, before the stone hits one of the other two guys hard in the shoulder. The guy makes an angry gurgling noise but otherwise doesn't stop.

“--listen, this is really not a good time for prank calls.”

Silence, then, “Dan, fuck, it's me. Jeph.”

For a moment Dan can't quite believe that Jeph called him. Then one of the dead guys actually starts growling, a low guttural noise that makes Dan's skin crawl and he yelps Jeph's name into the phone, far too fucking excited to have a friend around even if he's just a disembodied voice on a phone.

“Jeph, fuck, you're not gonna believe what's happened to me.”

“Dude, me too. I killed a guy and he came back to life!” Jeph sounds a bit hysterical, tinny voice crackling over the phone. The connection is worse than it actually should be, but Dan's too busy processing the information to care.

“You mean--you mean, it happened to you too?” Dan's really not quite sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but since he's currently walking backwards around his car, avoiding three men who were very much dead, he thinks that it doesn't matter either way.

Jeph's silent for a moment. “So it happened to you too?” He sounds relieved.

“Actually, I'm still right in the middle of it. There's three of these, uh, zombies, I guess, holy shit, I think that's what they are. They're staring at me right now.”

“Dan. Fuck, fuck. Listen to me, get the fuck away from them. Where are you? Can you run?”

Jeph's panic is making Dan panic. He stops dead on the other side of the car, way too far away from the driver's side and its door.

“I'm outside town, but I have a car.”

“Get in and drive! Right now.” Jeph sounds alarmed and Dan's really not sure why, because the three guys are so slow, he's pretty sure he could actually outrun them.

He's just finished thinking it when some new energy seems to surge through the three men, like they've been charged by something. Or activated. One moment they're slowly shuffling around the car after Dan, the next moment the first one, their leader, or whatever, stands up straight, turns his head sideways at an impossible angle. He regards Dan like a bird looking at a delicious worm in the grass.

Then it jumps forward and up, vaulting over the car like it's nothing, and comes to a stand right next to Dan.

“Motherfucker,” Dan screams, stuffing his phone in his pocket and backing away.

Either the thing doesn't know what it's doing yet or it's playing with Dan, because now it's advancing slowly again, like it didn't just jump _over_ a fucking car. The other two are coming around the car from the front and Dan sees his opening, the driver's side door unguarded.

He makes a break for it, desperately grabbing for the door handle. It's jammed again. Dan curses at it, pulling as hard as he can. Already he can see the three men gather behind him out of the corner of his eyes. It almost looks like they're making a formation and getting ready to pounce, when the door finally gives with a soft click.

Dan rips it open and slides in. He closes the door and switches the lock, bends over and then behind to lock up all other doors too. It makes him feel a little safer but his hand still shakes as he tries to fumble the key into the ignition.

For the briefest of moments he stops watching the men, looking down and sideways to get the key into its slot. It finally slips in easily and then the driver's side window shatters into pieces and hands come at him, cold, clammy hands. One wraps tightly around Dan's neck and it hurts so fucking much his eyes tear up.

Something's clawing at his arm and Dan feels warm blood soak into his shirt until he finally, finally gets the motor started. Dan slams his foot down on the gas and the car squeals into drive.

At first it goes slow, way too fucking slow, and the zombies just run along like it's nothing, outstretched arms still holding onto Dan through the broken window, squeezing his throat, his arm. He can feel his vision narrow at the corners of his eyes, oxygen cutting off.

The car finally lurches forward and accelerates. Two of the men let go of Dan and the window, tumbling away on the street, skin tearing off as they slide over the asphalt. The third one, the guy Dan ran over, is still holding on to his throat and Dan's had about fucking enough.

He lets go of the wheel and punches the guy in the face as hard as he can. There's a satisfying crunch as his nose breaks, part of the skin on his face bursting open as blood spills out and then he finally lets go of Dan's neck, falling sideways away from the car.

Dan gets his hands back on the wheel and the back tire catches the creature, rolls right over its leg, crushing it.

The car shoots straight down the blissfully empty highway. It's still not as fast as Dan would like but it's taking him away from these fucking things, so that's something at least.

Then he remembers Jeph and his phone.

He fumbles it out of his pocket and hopes, _hopes_ , Jeph's still there.

“Jeph, man, are you still there?”

There's a crackling of static that makes Dan's heart sink and then Jeph's voice comes through, cracked and far away. “Dan, I can't hear you, are you okay?”

“I'm fine. I'm fine. Listen, let's meet up somewhere!” He's almost yelling into the phone now, even though he knows it won't make Jeph understand him any better.

“Yes,” there's a loud crack in the line and Jeph's next words are hacked into staticky bits, “Going to the—try to find—nd Bert—the bus—hear me?--Meet you--the bus!”

Dan nods and then realizes Jeph can't see him, “Yes!” he yells into his phone, “I'll meet you guys at the bus.”

Jeph says something else and Dan strains to hear it but he can't for the life of him understand the words. Then the phone goes silent, the connection lost.

This time Dan doesn't throw it through the car, he just slips it back into his pocket, pressing his foot down on the gas pedal harder. He wonders what the fuck's going on in the city, but more than anything he hopes Jeph will get to the bus in one piece. Hopefully he's with Bert and Quinn and they can get out of the hotel or wherever the fuck they are.

He grips the wheel tighter, trying not to think of all the ifs and maybes that stand between him and Jeph and the bus. The rain's starting to taper off, but the clouds are still piling up in the sky, getting darker by the moment. It looks like a massive thunderstorm is about to hit.

There's a tiny click and then suddenly the radio comes on, blasting some obnoxious rock song at full volume. Dan almost has a heart attack and blindly fumbles for the buttons to change the channel. The rock song switches to an opera, a man wailing at the top of his lungs. Dan keeps steering carefully and switches again. The next channel is just loud chaotic screaming. There's clearly a newscaster in there somewhere, saying something, but it's overpowered by terrible screams. Dan hastily changes the channels.

A song by Katy Perry comes on at the same time the sky opens up and it starts pouring rain.

Dan doesn't slow the car down but he has to hold the steering wheel tightly because the car tires are starting to slip-slide on the asphalt. Soon the rain is so heavy he can barely see, but he just relies on his luck that the street will remain empty and doesn't slow down.

And then he looks into his rearview mirror and sees them.

Far behind him, but really not that far away at all, are figures running at top speed. He can't make them out clearly, so it's impossible to tell if it's the guys from earlier, but it's definitely more of the creatures. There are at least ten to fifteen of them, men and women, running on the highway behind his car. Sometimes they slip and fall on the wet asphalt and it should be funny, like a Charlie Chaplin routine, but they get up fast, almost unhindered, and that's pretty fucking scary.

They're closing in, too.

Dan curses and wills the car to go faster, but the engine's already whining high, needle pointing at maximum speed. Dan leans forward so far his nose almost touches the windshield trying to see better.

The radio abruptly switches off into eerie silence again and Dan's left with the sound of the rain. And now he can hear them too, the wet, far-off sound of water splashing as they run. Nervously he looks into his rearview mirror again, heart racing at the sight. He can't quite tell their numbers but it looks like there are even more now.

Where the fuck they came from he can't tell, but it's freaking him the fuck out. It also answers the question of whether or not the three guys were an isolated case. Not that Dan particularly wanted to know the answer to that.

Dan's so caught up in his thoughts he almost hits the car that appears out of the rain in front of him. He swerves sharply to the right, barely avoiding it. His car lurches sideways precariously, but he manages to steer against it, avoiding a crash.

Soon more cars appear, scattered across the highway. They're all empty as far as Dan can tell, which is both incredibly creepy and relieving. He still doesn't really have a weapon and as the rain sweeping in through the shattered window proves, his car isn't particularly safe either.

The spaces between the abandoned cars become smaller and Dan has to slow down to avoid fatal crashes. He's entering the heart of the city now, highway slowly bleeding into streets and ordered blocks of houses. It helps that they're labeled in a logical way that suddenly makes a lot more sense than it did this morning, when Dan got lost. Dan at least knows where he has to go to get to the hotel and then their bus, but it soon becomes apparent that he may not be able to drive there.

He takes another look in the rearview mirror. The things chasing after him are being slowed down by the cars as well, although for other reasons. They're crawling over the hoods and roofs like ants, looking for anything alive they can kill. It's actually kind of fascinating to watch, but Dan knows that if he does stay to do just that, he'll probably die pretty quickly.

Two miles later he hits the final roadblock. Three cars must have been in some kind of terrible accident. They're all mashed together in a small space, piled into each other. Dan can see parts of corpses and these are the kind that remain dead, he can tell straight away. Somehow that seems even more grotesque than the things following him, maybe because Dan knows that eventually they'll be swarmed by what's behind him, reduced to piles of nameless bones.

He slows to a halt, because there's no way to get around the wreckage. He can already see the hotel from afar, people running out of it, a big cloud of dark smoke floating out of the lobby behind them. He's trying to gauge the distance to the parking lot, when behind him he hears the sound of glass shattering.

After he's hesitated another moment, Dan kills the engine, pockets the car key and gets out. He looks over his shoulder to discover that the things have not only come a lot closer, they also seem to have spotted him or, rather, identified him as prey.

Dan turns around and runs.

*

Dan wouldn't describe himself as being in-shape really, but he's not unfit either. Drumming usually keeps him on his toes enough that he can make it through a show, but he realizes now, after a block of constant running, that maybe his general fitness isn't as good as he thought it was.

Already the painful sting in his side seems too much to bear. There's the dull pain from where one of the dead things grabbed his neck, a constant reminder of why he's actually running. And while the wound on his arm isn't actually bleeding anymore it still hurts like fuck and the running only making it worse.

On top of that Dan constantly has to dodge cars and debris strewn about on the street. It looks a little like all the footage of the tsunami in Asia he'd watched with Jeph way back when. There are things everywhere that just don't belong in streets, like a giant wave had swept everything onshore.

What is even creepier, though, is the lack of living people.

Dan can see some in the hotel lobby as he runs past, but the smoke is too thick to make anything out clearly. Apart from that the streets are empty. He can neither see any sane survivors nor any rampant monsters apart from the ones following him. It's eerie, in a way. This city isn't especially big or densely populated, but back when they rolled into town with their buses, Dan had seen lots of people milling about in the streets, curiously looking at them as they drove past.

Now, everything just seems – dead.

Dan squeezes past a car and finds himself in the middle of an intersection. He looks right, then left and realizes he has to make a turn here. A few blocks away he can already see the parking lot and if he squints he can almost make out the tour bus.

In front of him is another big car crash site, this one actually involving a bus. He stops to try and find the best way around, but the wreckage stretches so far in either direction it seems to make the most sense to crawl over it.

He starts the steep climb and actually makes good headway until he's almost reached the top, when a hand wraps around his ankle and pulls. It's not an especially hard grip and Dan pulls away with ease. He's about to slide down the other side of the wreckage and run, when he hears a voice.

Carefully, he slides back down to the car he just passed. It's a taxi, roof completely torn off. In the back seat, wedged between the door and the remains of a broken traffic light, a young man is softly saying, “Help,” over and over.

Dan takes one look at him, the way one of his arms is completely bent the wrong way, a rib protruding out of his chest, bone so white it's almost impossible to look anywhere else, and he knows, just knows, that the kid won't make it.

He glances over his shoulder and feels fear surge through him when he sees the things are only a few feet away, crawling over the dead cars, partly tracking him, partly looking for other humans. Dan knows that if he leaves the boy now, he'll be dead in the next couple of moments, wedged in the backseat with no way to escape.

The guy looks at Dan, abruptly stops asking for help and starts openly weeping. Dan stands on the hood of the taxi, feeling angry and helpless, because the boy must've seen the decision on his face before Dan had even consciously made it.

“I'm so fucking sorry,” Dan tells him quietly.

The young man looks away, continuing to weep. Dan tries to think of something he can do for him, anything at all, but just then one of the things jumps on the car below his and Dan's survival instincts kick back in. He crawls up and over the wreckage as fast as he can, tries to forget all about the man he's leaving behind and just concentrates on the running.

Dan still hears the young man's terrified screams when the wave of monsters washes over him and the sudden, abrupt silence when he dies.

Dan keeps running.

In the distance he suddenly recognizes three figures, walking. And for a moment he thinks he's imagining things, but then he sees that it's really Jeph, holding what appears to be a coat hanger and next to him Bert's walking with a baseball bat, unhurt and serious. Quinn, too, is holding some sort of weapon, although Dan can't really tell what it is, but he looks to be okay other than a slight limp.

Dan feels relief wash over him and runs faster, mustering up all the energy he still has left in his body.

“Jeph! Guys!” he yells at the top of his lungs.

They turn around and he sees the moment Jeph recognizes him. It's on his whole face. He yells, waving his arms. Dan knows it's partly because they've seen the huge crowd of monster motherfuckers following him, but he also knows it's relief, the same relief he feels at seeing them again.

And then Dan trips.

At first he doesn't even realize what's happening. His foot catches on something and for a brief moment between heartbeats he's still running, before it dawns on him that he's actually falling. He hits the asphalt hard, hands splitting open as he tries to catch himself.

He tries to get up as fast as he can. In the distance he can hear Jeph yelling. He struggles to his feet, taking only a fleeting look at what had tripped him, a dead bird with a broken off beak and white, empty eyes, before he starts running again.

But it's too late.

Dan knows it's over when he feels something warm on the back of his neck and turns to realize it's one of the monsters, breathing hard. If he's not mistaken, it's the one he actually hit with his car, or maybe his imagination is just playing a trick on him. He tries to be faster, but the thing just matches him and then trips him up.

When he falls for the second time, Dan knows with sudden, terrible clarity he won't get up again. The asphalt is cold and wet underneath him and then he feels the first one of them land heavily on his back. He struggles to get his head up, face them head on at least. In the process he catches a glimpse of Jeph running towards him, a look on his face Dan wishes he hadn't seen.

One of the things starts tearing at his leg, white-hot pain shooting through Dan's body. He tries to fight them off, but there's just too many. Hands start ripping at his arms and suddenly Dan knows with absolute certainty that it can't be over. Not like this.

“This isn't it,” he whispers, voice hoarse from screaming.

Then he takes another deep breath, already feeling blood gurgling up through his lungs. “This isn't the end,” he screams as loud as he can.

The words come out barely intelligible, but Dan knows they're true as he slips into blissful darkness.

 

**interlude (1)**

Inside the bus it's dark. The only light comes from cars flying by outside. They're brief flashes of illumination that turn the couch and the table and everything else into highlights in stark relief before plunging them back into darkness.

Jeph stubs his toe twice before he manages to feel his way into the kitchen and then almost has a heart attack when he hears Dan say from the darkness, “Oh, hey, did I wake you?”

“No,” Jeph says in a low voice, even though there's really nothing that could ever wake Bert or Quinn. They sleep like the dead. “Just scared the fuck out of me.”

Dan smiles apologetically. “Want some tea?” He holds up the pot, pitching his voice just as low as Jeph's. It gives their conversation something secretive.

Jeph slides into the little kitchenette booth opposite Dan and grabs a mug from the shelf behind him.

“Sure.”

Dan pours the tea, little puff of steam rising up between them. Jeph fumbles for the sugar cubes in the dark, fingertips touching something wet and sticky, before finding the little jar. He drops two in his tea and curls his hands around his mug.

Across from him Dan's face lights in a brief flicker of another passing car, then goes dark again. Jeph thinks he looks tired.

They sit in silence for a while. Jeph can't remember what woke him in the first place, but now he's getting sleepy again as the tea spreads warmly through his body. Dan's looking out of the window, thumb rubbing distractedly over the pattern on his mug.

“I had...a dream,” Dan finally tells the window.

Jeph's first reaction is to mock him for still having wet dreams on tour, but something keeps him from saying it. Maybe it's the way Dan's looking at him now, all serious.

He nods, waiting for Dan to go on, but nothing happens. Dan stays quiet.

Jeph drinks from his tea and looks outside. Off in the distance are small glittering blobs of light, some far-off little city or a billboard lit so brightly it shines through the night.

“I dreamed that I died trying to get to--” Dan breaks off again and Jeph looks at him intently. Dan seems to want to say more, then shakes his head almost as if he needs to shake off whatever is bothering him.

“Never mind, just a dream.” Dan shrugs, half smiles.

“Tell me,” Jeph says between sips, but Dan immediately shakes his head.

“No, it's fine. Just some weird shit my brain cooked up.”

Jeph looks at him a moment longer, but Dan's turned to the window again and Jeph can tell he's decided he won't say any more on the matter. Slowly, they keep drinking their tea. Jeph idly wonders what sort of dream might keep Dan awake at night. Maybe nightmares about the band splitting up. Jeph's had a lot of those dreams over the past years.

He doesn't even realize he's finished his tea until he lifts the cup to his lips and only a small drop rolls into his mouth. The little red digital clock on the microwave reads 3am. The engine underneath their feet rumbles softly, bus rolling gently along the street.

“Let's go back to bed,” Jeph says, getting up. “Come on.”

Dan slowly gets up too and Jeph turns, starts back to his bunk, when he feels Dan's hand on his arm. He turns back around, waiting for Dan to say something.

Dan leans forward, concentrated frown on his face. Jeph doesn't realize what he's doing until Dan's lips press against his, warm, light pressure. His breath smells like tea.

They stand there, mouths pressed together in a chaste version of a kiss. Then Dan pulls away, looking as puzzled as Jeph feels.

“So.” He looks at Jeph, completely at a loss.

Jeph hesitates for a moment, then leans forward and kisses Dan again. Already it feels kind of -- normal. Jeph chalks it up to that weird feeling of timelessness that always seems to descend on everything after 2am.

“Come on,” he says again and pulls Dan back to the bunks.

They stand in the half darkness together for a few heartbeats before Jeph squeezes Dan's hand, not quite sure what else to do, and then he says, “Go get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning.”

Dan gives him a look that's not quite convinced, but then he nods, more to himself than to Jeph, and crawls into his bunk.

Jeph waits until he's settled in before he gets into his own bunk.

As he falls asleep he tries not to think about the implications of what just happened. Tries not to think of the way Dan kissed him.

 

**B**

Jeph wakes to the warm, orange glow of the afternoon sun on the wall of his hotel room. He blinks, disoriented from sleep, still too warm and comfortable to try and get up. The other bed is empty, no sign of Dan. He's probably up already. Maybe Quinn woke him and dragged him out for an early morning practice run. Quinn's experimenting with new sounds for the band. It's Dan's own fault for encouraging it.

Stretching under the covers, Jeph remembers a time when they only wrote songs in the studio, churning them out by the dozen on a tight timeframe. The process feels a lot better now, more natural. It's definitely less stressful.

Jeph scratches his belly and decides to roll out of bed, see where the fuck everyone is, get breakfast maybe.

As soon as his feet hit the carpeted floor and he wakes up a little more, he notices the sounds for the first time. They've been there all along, he just hadn't noticed. It sounds like there's a dog scratching on the door and like there's a big party somewhere in the hotel.

Slowly, Jeph pads to the bathroom, flips the toilet seat up with one naked foot and pisses for what feels like forever. After, he washes his hands and splashes some water on his face. He looks at himself in the little mirror and tries to decide if today is worth shaving for, before deciding against it.

He walks back into the bedroom, pajama pants almost slipping off his ass when he bends down to fish out a water bottle from between his dirty clothes. Jeph uncaps it, takes a big sip and wanders over to the window.

Even after he's pulled back the curtains to look into the greyish drizzle outside, it takes him a while to get what he's seeing. His heart speeds up, pumps adrenaline through his whole body, before Jeph is even consciously aware of what he's seeing. He sets the water bottle down on the windowsill so hard that water sloshes out and lands on the radiator with a hiss.

The building on the other side of the street is on fire.

Jeph blinks at it. It's still there. Somehow he expects his window to be a TV screen, but when he touches it, it's cold, his hand leaving a fading imprint on the glass. Finally, his brain catches up the rest of the way and Jeph notes the people running on the street, notes the people _chasing_ them.

He cranes his neck, trying to see if there's a natural disaster heading their way. This part of the country isn't known for tornados or anything, but ever since hurricane Katrina, Jeph's been careful to always check his surroundings for impending doom. Still, he can't make out much from the window. The damn thing won't open either, even though Jeph pulls at the lever forcefully until he sees the sign that helpfully tells him that all windows are sealed due to safety measures.

“Hell of a safety measure,” Jeph says under his breath and turns, goes to the door. Maybe there's a window somewhere in the hall where he can get a better look.

When he pulls the door open, he comes face to face with an elderly man. There's blood all over his face and out of reflex Jeph lurches forward, grabbing for the man's shoulders to check what's wrong with him. It's then that he notes the bloodshot eyes, purple bags under them, a split second before the man hisses at Jeph, a low guttural sound that's unlike anything Jeph's ever heard before.

He pulls back and the man's teeth bite into the nothingness of air,where Jeph's hands were just a second before.

“Sir, are you--” Jeph starts and breaks off, because he's pretty sure that something is very not all right with that guy. He's just staring back at Jeph now, spit dripping from the corner of his mouth. When Jeph looks closer he can see that there's a big bloody gash on the side of his head. It's blackened at the corners, and Jeph swallows hard and uncomfortably looks away.

Feeling strangely vulnerable without his shoes on, he says, “Hold on, sir, wait here. I'm gonna call a doctor.” He turns, feeling weird when fear surges through him. He shouldn't be afraid, but he also doesn't want to invite the old guy in.

Something about him isn't right.

Jeph walks to the telephone by the bed, careful not to run and scare the old man. He dials reception and is put on hold, a friendly woman's voice informing him they'll be right there for him with whatever service he needs.

Cursing under his breath Jeph turns around just in time to see the old man lurch forward and then drop into a sprint that takes him from the door to Jeph in the blink of an eye. One moment Jeph's staring at the man, trying to comprehend what he's doing, the next moment he's smashed into the wall sideways, feels the skin on his temple split open in hot pain.

He feels the man's breath on his neck and hears the sound again, a low, guttural gurgle. Without thinking, Jeph whirls around, bringing his arms up fast. He's lucky and catches the man in the face, makes him reel back long enough for Jeph to get his bearings.

This time when he looks at the man's face his expression has changed and there's only one thing there: hatred. He growls at Jeph again and there's blood on his teeth now, flowing out of his mouth with little clumps of something brown mixed in. Jeph has to swallow down the bile rising in his throat and tries to understand, tries to get his sluggish brain to make sense of this.

The man rocks forward again, grappling at Jeph with clammy hands, trying to—Jeph's not sure if he's not imagining it—but he seems to be trying to bite. Caught between fighting the guy off and trying not to hurt him, Jeph's stuck holding him at arm's length while trying not to get bitten at the same time.

He can see the phone, lying sideways on the carpeted floor, receiver pointed just so that Jeph can make out the ghostly voice of the woman telling him to hold the line. For some reason Jeph's certain no one's going to answer the phone and for the first time since he opened the door, Jeph thinks of Dan, then Quinn and Bert.

“Need to find them,” he says, startling himself back into his own surreal reality, holding the bleeding man at bay. He tries not to think too hard about it when he gives the man a strong push, makes him tumble backwards.

The guy trips over the phone and hangs in midair for that weird moment between standing and falling before he hits the ground with an ugly crack.

Jeph's pretty sure his heart stops for a beat.

He hesitates for a long minute, then walks to the man who's lying motionless on the floor. Jeph feels for a pulse, getting blood on his fingers, but there's nothing. The man is dead. Jeph stumbles backwards and sits heavily on Dan's bed.

Through the phone on the floor the woman's voice still loops over and over again.

Jeph's never seen a dead body in his life. He sits there and wonders what he's supposed to do now, how the fuck they'll get the blood stains out of the carpet and what Dan will say when he comes back to Jeph and a corpse.

For some reason Jeph has the urge to pick the man up and put him on Dan's bed, as if he's uncomfortable on the floor now that, well, he's dead. Jeph's breathing hard like he's played three shows in a row and he gets up and goes into the bathroom, calmly starting to wash the blood from his hands. He wets a towel and presses it to his temple.

When he looks at himself in the mirror his face looks nothing like before. Somehow that reminds him of the burning building outside again and he pads back out into the living room, goes to the window to look out. The fire's still burning and there's no fire truck in sight. There are fewer people on the street as far as Jeph can tell and the rain has picked up considerably.

He's trying to figure out if anyone is still in the next building, when he sees something move out of the corner of his eye.

Jeph reels around.

The man, the dead man, is kneeling on the floor, heaving, throwing up black chunks of blood all over the carpet. Jeph's heart is racing as he watches, unable to take his eyes off of the man who was dead, fucking dead on the floor, just a few minutes ago. Then, suddenly, the man stops and his head whips around so fast it's almost as if Jeph blinked once too often.

This time when he sees Jeph, black goo gurgling up in his mouth, he lets out a bloodcurdling scream that reduces Jeph's mind to a single thought _run_.

And he does.

*

Outside in the hall the carpet burns under his bare feet as Jeph runs hard, not even trying for the elevator but bursting through the emergency door into the staircase instead. He runs straight into a group of men who whip around and shove him away, panic clear in their eyes.

Jeph stumbles backwards, barely catching himself before the bar on the emergency door connects with his back. The staircase is full of people running up the stairs, panicked screams filling the air.

It's so overwhelming Jeph is frozen in shock for a long moment, trying to connect the empty hallway with the old man, who was _dead_ on the fucking floor, with the sudden presence of other people; sane, alive people.

He grabs the arm of a woman passing by before he can think it through. She has streaked black hair and a nose ring that glints in the pale emergency lights of the staircase.

“Hey, hey, what's going on?” he asks her, but she only gives him a stricken look and wrenches her arm free, rushing forward, stumbling on the first step before she disappears into the mass of bodies going up the stairs. She doesn't even look back.

“They're coming from downstairs,” a voice says nearby and Jeph turns to an older man standing next to him. The door stands at an odd angle to the staircase, providing a small space that's removed from the stream of people passing by, and the old man seems to use it to catch his breath. He's sweating heavily and there's a nasty gash down the side of his leg.

“Who?” Jeph asks. “Who is coming? Is this some kind of terrorist attack?”

The man shakes his head before Jeph can even finish the question. “No, it's--it's a disease, I've seen it with my own eyes. People die and then they, they--” As he talks his breath hits Jeph's face, a foul smell to it like dead vegetables, and Jeph has to breathe through his mouth to be able to bear it.

“And then what? Is there help on the way?” Jeph's unable to hold the questions back and he reaches out, surprised to find that he's shaking the man, who looks at him wildly, eyes darting to where people are still pressing past them trying to get up the staircase.

Then the man suddenly goes completely still. Jeph immediately knows something is wrong. The man's eyes get a hazy glaze and then he starts screaming as Jeph feels something wet and warm soak into his pajama pants. When he looks down the wound on the man's leg has opened up and blood is pouring out; it's a light red, almost impossible to identify as blood in the dim light.

Before Jeph can do anything, step back and away or try to stifle the bleeding, a series of loud screams erupts from further down in the staircase. At first it's faint but then it suddenly gains in volume, turning into a deafening roar of panic that makes Jeph's ears ring.

The reaction of the people is instantaneous. It's like a ripple runs through them and then they rear forward, upwards as one and start running. Everyone is shoving to get away from whatever it is that's coming up from the lower floors. Jeph tries to make out what the hell it is, but someone's elbow hits him square in the gut and he stumbles back, gets pressed against the wall and then swept away by the mass of people.

When he tries to look back he sees the old man writhing on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Jeph starts pushing at the faceless bodies around him trying to get back, when the man suddenly looks up.

There's half of something hanging from between his teeth.

It's a human hand.

And he's smiling.

Jeph retches, feeling the bile run down his chin as he stumbles, tries not to fall on the stairs. He wipes at his chin and in a desperate attempt to regain some sort of control, pushes and shoves as hard as everyone else to regain his footing. It's only a brief moment in which he pays more attention to shoving the woman next to him away from his body than to his own feet, but it's enough.

His foot catches on something and before he can even scream, he's down, falling on the stairs. For a long, disorienting moment he's thrown into a world where there's only scrambling legs and sharp heels almost piercing his hands. Jeph fights against the feeling of disorientation, tries to get back up, but someone's always knocking him back down, arms and legs and bodies jostling him.

Someone kicks him hard in the stomach again and this time he does throw up, stomach cramping together to get rid of whatever is still inside. Jeph puts his hands over his head trying to protect himself, but he knows he can't stay down like this for long. He tries to think of a way to get back up, to get through the panicked wall of legs, to get back on his feet.

He remembers something Dan once told him, about surviving in a pit, a foolproof method if you get sucked down. Jeph tries to think of what it was, but all he can remember is Dan and how they'd laughed at the absurdity of either of them falling onto the floor in a pit at a concert.

Jeph takes a long, deep breath, feels a little like he's suffocating, like the panic is so thick in the air it's choking him.

And then something big and heavy falls on him.

At first Jeph thinks he's actually fainting and desperately pinches his own arm to try and stay conscious, taking huge labored breaths of air. Then he realizes it's actually a body, a human body that is pressing him down, that people are crawling and walking over to get past. Without thinking, because if he did he knows he wouldn't be able to do this, Jeph pushes up, uses the other person as a shield to regain enough of his footing to stand up, just to immediately get swept away by the crowd again.

The sudden swell of noise, blood curdling screams now, makes his head spin, but he tries to hold on to the body, a woman's body in a red cocktail dress, for as long as he can and he tries to help her along. The sea of bodies suddenly surges sideways, away from some obstacle Jeph can't make out and he can't hold onto the woman anymore, feels her body slide out of his grip. She falls heavily and trips up the two guys moving behind Jeph long enough that he can see the woman is missing half her face, mouth turned down in a sad look of defeat.

It's that look of defeat that finally seems to make something in Jeph's brain switch. He tries to orient himself and sees another emergency exit up ahead, half broken light flashing so bright that it almost blinds him. He tries to navigate sideways, out of the stream of bodies, but it proves harder than he thought. He gets pushed hard in the back again only to slam into a solid wall of bodies in front of him.

There's the sound of one single scream immediately up ahead, and Jeph can see around the woman in front of him that there's a small open space where two men are bent over a third one.

It takes Jeph a second to register what the tearing sounds actually _mean_ and then he surges forward, tries to move as if he's swimming, pushing and pushing against shirts and dresses and suit jackets to get forward.

Behind him he can hear people sobbing. Someone grabs his arm and he can't tell if it's to stop him for help or to attack, so he wrenches himself free, shoves his elbow into someone's side and half falls out of the solid, sweaty wall of panicked bodies against the emergency door.

For a long terrible moment the door doesn't budge at all. Jeph shoves against it until his shoulder hurts and then it mercifully gives under his sweaty hands.

He squeezes through the small space between door and frame and immediately shuts it behind himself again.

*

The hallway he finds himself in is deserted. Apart from the muted screams behind the emergency door there's not a single sound. The corridor in front of Jeph stretches, then sharply twists sideways. The corridors to his left and right are just as empty, but every time Jeph turns his head he thinks he's seeing something move out of the corner of his eye.

Without thinking, he moves straight ahead. It's the first time he registers how much his feet, his whole body, hurt, adrenaline giving way to a low buzz of alarm. Jeph walks slowly, always looking over his shoulder, fists up in the air like a puzzled boxer who doesn't know where the next strike will come from.

He needs to find some shoes, a jacket maybe. A weapon. And something to drink. The moment he thinks it Jeph realizes how thirsty he is, dry lips sticking together with blood where he must have bit them. He can't even remember doing it.

It seems like much too big a risk to go into one of the rooms, but it's his only option, especially since a room is much easier to defend than a whole corridor. Just before the hallway curves off to the left where Jeph can't see, he picks a room at random with the door slightly ajar. There's a sign hanging on the door knob that says “Please do not disturb.” The _not_ is crossed out with black marker.

Jeph puts his hand on the door handle, then slowly pushes the door open just enough so he can see into the room. It looks much like his own, a big room with two beds, two doors on the left leading into a bathroom and a walk in closet.

With his hand hovering over the handle, Jeph waits. His heartbeat is hammering in his ears as he strains to listen, trying to figure out if there's anyone inside. One of _them_.

After what feels like forever, Jeph pushes the door open a little more. It creaks softly and he jumps, looking over his shoulder.

There's one perfectly panicked moment when he thinks there's actually someone inside the bathroom, door only half open with darkness spilling out, but then he realizes the sound is only the AC slowly coughing to life, eerie timing and all.

Taking a deep breath, Jeph pushes the door all the way open but forgets to hold onto it. It crashes into the opposite wall with a loud bang that goes through Jeph like a shot. Already he can hear the shuffling footsteps of one of those creatures coming closer, hurtling its misshaped body around the bend of the corridor.

Jeph hastily shuts the door behind himself and locks it, then turns back to the room to face any attackers that might be coming at him.

Nothing happens.

It takes him a few minutes to work up the courage to look first into the bathroom, then into the closet, only to realize that he's alone here and that no one is trying to get in either.

For now.

After finding himself a pair of sneakers that fit moderately well, a pair of jeans he has to tie around his waist with a belt and a hoodie, Jeph goes into the bathroom to drink something. He hesitates to look into the mirror and when he does he regrets it almost immediately. His face is all banged up, a dark purple bruise spreading over his left cheekbone where he'd hit the stairs earlier. The wound on his temple is black with dirt and dried blood. It's itching.

Jeph turns on the tap and lets the water run over his aching hands for a while before he holds his head under the stream of water to drink until he feels slightly sick.

Then he starts cleaning up the wound on his face and the various cuts as best as he can. It's a calming activity, normal in a way that helps slow his heartbeat down and order his racing thoughts. When he looks into the mirror the next time, really looks at his face, he feels a lot more like himself, like everything that happened has just been a really fucked up nightmare.

When he steps out into the living room again and comes face to face with a wall spattered in blood, he is reminded that what happened is very real. 

Jeph walks over to the one bed that seems to have not been slept in and sits down on it. He stretches out his feet, wiggles them in the shoes and for the first time really thinks about what he should do next. Up until now all he'd done was just move, forward, away, go, go, go.

It's only now that he realizes he needs to get out of this hotel, needs to figure out what is happening and if it's just here in this fucking city or if this, whatever this is, is global. He needs to find Quinn and Bert and Dan.

Dan.

On the nightstand is a cellphone, a pink girly thing. It blinks twelve new messages at him and Jeph takes especially good care to delete all of them before he does anything with it. He's not sure he could bear to listen to whatever is on them. Then he dials Dan's cell phone, thankful that it's so fucking easy to memorize the number and that he actually did it.

Zombie apocalypse had never been on Dan and Jeph's list of reasons why they should know each other's phone numbers. They'd originally devised the plan of memorizing cell phone numbers in case they lost Bert or one of them was too drunk to realize where they were or in case everyone accidentally forgot Jeph at a rest stop again. In any case, Jeph is fucking relived that they did do it, because now he can call Dan and maybe start figuring things out and get out of the fucking hotel.

He dials the number and waits for the tone. Jeph's not sure what he expected, if he expected anything at all, but when he hears Dan's voice, rough, but loud and clear, grunting, “Yes, fuck, hello?” Jeph is so relived he doesn't know what to say. The silence stretches, interrupted only by their breathing.

“Hello?” Dan says again. “Who's there? Listen--” There is a dull sound, then breaking glass followed by a gurgling scream, then silence, before Dan comes back on and says, “Listen, this is really not a good time for prank calls.”

That finally does the trick and Jeph snaps out of his daze. 

“Dan, fuck, it's me. Jeph.”

There's a silence only interrupted by some static that sounds like growling. Then Dan says, “Jeph, fuck! You're not gonna believe what happened to me.”

Jeph feels a lot better just hearing Dan's voice, which is ridiculous because he's still stuck in this stupid fucking hotel. He blurts, “Dude, I killed a guy and he came back to life!” He feels a bit hysterical saying it out loud, but also a lot better. The connection is rough, background noise high, and Jeph wonders where the fuck Dan is.

“You mean--you mean it happened to you too?” Dan sounds as surprised as Jeph feels hearing it. But if it happened to Dan too, that means it's not just restricted to the hotel. Jeph feels his heart sink because, without realizing it, he had sort of hoped that it was just some weird outbreak of, like, gas or something that turned the hotel into a building full of nutjobs. But wherever the fuck Dan is, it seems to be happening there too.

“So it happened to you too?” he finally says, only belatedly realizing he basically repeated Dan's question back to him.

On the other end of the line he can hear Dan take a breath. “Actually,” he says, “I'm still right in the middle of it. There's three of these, uh, zombies, I guess, staring at me right about now.”

Jeph's on his feet before he knows it, standing in the empty hotel room, picturing Dan somewhere in a shitty dark alley getting cornered by three of these fucking things. 

“Dan. Holy shit, listen to me, get the fuck away from them,” he says, gripping the pink phone so hard it cracks ominously. “Seriously, where are you? Can you run?”

Jeph knows he should probably be calm about this. If it were him he wouldn't want a panicked Dan on the other end of his phone. But he doesn't know how much of a grasp of the situation Dan has yet. He doesn't sound like he's thinking of these fucking things as much of a threat. Jeph's pretty sure that if Dan doesn't see the danger he's in, he'll soon learn the hard way. And Jeph doesn't want Dan to die while he's on the phone with him.

Or at all.

“I have a car.” Dan's voice is a lot quieter now; he sounds like he's on the other end of the world. Jeph shakes his cell phone, trying to turn the volume up, but it's already at maximum.

“Get in and drive!” he yells into the phone, hoping Dan can still hear him clearly enough. “Right now. Go, go!” 

There's no answer and then a heavy thump and then Dan's cursing. The connection goes crackly and then Jeph can only hear muffled noises. He presses the cell phone to his ear, hoping to hear anything at all that will give him a clue as to what Dan's up to.

“Dan? Dan come on, are you still there?”

But there's no answer and Jeph starts pacing the hotel room, trying to imagine where Dan is or what he could be doing. 

None of his scenarios end well.

A sudden noise makes Jeph stop dead in his tracks. It sounds like a tap, like someone's standing in front of his door. Jeph holds his breath, then the noise comes again, this time more pronounced. He carefully walks towards the door, trying to be as quiet as he possibly can. The third time the tapping sound can clearly be heard in the room, Jeph is standing directly in front of the door, only to realize that it's not coming from the door at all.

He turns around and immediately sees the source of the noise. A bird is sitting outside on the windowsill. Rain is coming down heavily now, almost completely obscuring the view to the opposite side of the street, and the bird is looking directly at Jeph. It keeps pecking against the glass of the window with its beak over and over.

Jeph moves closer to the window. “Fuck off,” he tells the bird, feeling slightly ridiculous. When he's close enough though, he can see that the bird's eyes are milky white. There's a bloody wound just below its neck, partly hidden by black feathers. The bird caws at Jeph and then suddenly breaks into a frenzied motion of hacking at the window. 

Since he can't open the window and fucking push the bird off of the window ledge himself, Jeph steps back, bringing distance between them. It feels like a silly thing to do, but the bird is pecking at the window so hard and fast that Jeph thinks it might entirely be in the realm of possibilities that it could break.

Just when he considers leaving the room to make a break for the lobby downstairs instead of waiting for Dan to get back on the phone, there's a crackle and he hears Dan say something.

Jeph whips the phone back to his ear just in time to hear, “--still with me?”

There's a sudden hiss so loud Jeph has to hold the phone away from his ear until it passes and then he practically yells, “Dan, I can't hear you properly, are you okay?”

On the windowsill the bird is still pecking at the glass and Jeph can't stop watching it, the weird way it holds its head at an angle that looks like it should be impossible on such a small bird.

“--m fine. I'm fine.” Dan's voice comes over the line. He sounds out of breath, but Jeph thinks he can hear the motor of a car, or at least he hopes that's what it is. Certainly Dan's still alive and not in such great danger that he can't talk on the phone. “--isten, let's meet up somewh--” 

Jeph presses the phone to his ear as if that will make Dan's words any clearer. Luckily, he can still get the gist of what Dan's saying.

“Yes,” he yells as loud as he can. He knows he's probably putting himself in danger by being this loud, but he needs Dan to hear where they will meet up, fuck the static or whatever it is that's interfering with their phone line. “I'm going to the lobby to try and find Quinn and Bert. Then we'll go to the tour bus, you hear me?” There's no response from Dan, so Jeph repeats his last sentence, praying that enough of it gets through to Dan, “We'll meet you at the bus!”

He hears something that vaguely sounds like a yes and hesitates a moment before he says, “Get here safely, Dan.” When there's no response, only static, he hangs up. He feels something a little like, well, hope. Then he remembers that he has to find Bert and Quinn before he can do anything at all. He dials their phones but gets nothing but voice mail. 

Jeph decides to get down to the lobby in the hope that Bert and Quinn had the same idea. He has no clue what the situation is down there, but he has to get out anyway and jumping out of the window is really not an option at this point. He'll just have to gamble and see if he can find them down there. 

If not, well. Jeph decides to deal with that decision later.

He looks at the bird outside the window again, still picking away, and pockets the phone in case Dan calls again. Just as he's about turn away from the window, there's a sudden gust of wind and the bird loses its grip on the windowsill and flies away sideways, out of Jeph's sight. It's a curious thing and when Jeph steps right up to the window to see where the bird went he notices a tiny crack in the glass.

Jeph shudders and quickly turns back to the room to look for a weapon. There's really not much of anything in the room, not even removable lamps. It's kind of bleak. Finally Jeph breaks a coat hanger out of its latch inside the wardrobe. It won't save him from armies of clearly insane creatures but it'll have to do for now.

The actually leaving the room part proves harder than Jeph thought. He opens the door an inch, trying to peer out, but then fear surges up in him again and he closes it. Remembering the few moments in the staircase, in a sea of legs where he honestly thought he might die, Jeph can't quite bring himself to go out.

But he has to meet with Dan and find Bert and Quinn.

“Come on, come on,” he quietly tells himself, then rips the door open, brandishing the coat hanger in front of his body like it's a heavy sword, not a tiny piece of metal.

The hallway is empty. 

There's no sound except for Jeph's rapid breathing and he slowly inches out of the hotel room, trying to make as little noise as possible. The staircase is out as an option for getting downstairs, nothing in the world could get him back in there. So that only leaves the elevator. As far as he can tell it's around the bend; he faintly remembers signs he saw earlier pointing that way. He just hopes it's still working.

Pressed up against the wall in the total silence of the pristine carpeted hallway, Jeph feels a little ridiculous. He can't tell if he's overreacting anymore, because this whole thing still feels unreal. 

Zombies. Underneath all the fear Dan had sounded a little -- giddy was the word maybe. And under different circumstances Jeph might have agreed with that, because fuck, zombies were fucking cool. But the shock of actually having killed someone only to have them come back to life was still too fresh in Jeph's memory to make him anything but wary about what might be lurking around the corner.

Jeph moves slowly, inching forward step by small step. He makes a tight fist around the coat hanger, metal pressing comfortingly into the flesh of his hand. The carpet swallows most of the sounds of his steps as he wheels around the corner, ready for attack.

The hallway stretches in front of him, innocent and, most importantly, empty. Jeph feels stupid for pulling a sudden move like that but he can see the elevator up ahead and that makes him forget about everything else.

He walks toward it at a brisk pace, but then actually decides that nothing says he can't run. If anything it'll give him an advantage in an attack, because he's already moving. He tries to look into any open rooms as he jogs past, but soon abandons that and makes for the elevator, running as fast as he can. It feels good in a way, because he feels like he's finally acting and not just reacting to shit that's happening to him.

Jeph reaches the elevator with no incidents. He presses the button and waits.

The little digital numbers slowly tick down from thirty. Jeph has no idea what floor he is on now, so he just waits for the numbers to stop.

He realizes he hasn't thought his plan all the way through when the elevator numbers stop at nineteen and the doors open with a ding. 

It's only sheer luck that Jeph doesn't get shot then and there. 

He's standing a little to the side of the elevator doors, body barely visible from inside. If he'd stood in front of the opening doors the first blast would have killed him.

Jeph jumps aside when he hears the bullet fly past him, body pressed against the wall as someone fires multiple shots through the empty corridor from inside the elevator. He can hear a woman cry and someone else curse.

With the elevator his only option he has to take a chance now or wait for the elevator to come back. Who knows what could happen during that time.

“Don't shoot, I'm not one of them.”

The shooting immediately stops. 

“Prove it,” a male voice comes from inside the elevator.

Jeph takes a deep breath and steps out in front of the open doors. Before he knows it, he has the barrel of a shotgun pressed under his chin.

“Say something.” The voice belongs to a small, muscular man who is barely taller than Jeph. He's sunburned and looks tired.

“My name's Jeph. I'm not one of them, I swear. I just want to get down to the lobby.”

Next to the man are two women in jogging suits are staring at Jeph with scared expressions on their faces. In the corner three teens are huddled around a man with silvery-grey hair, who is propped against the wall. All of them are looking at the man with the gun.

The man with the gun has his gaze firmly on Jeph, seems to size him up. 

The elevator doors suddenly start closing, but the man impatiently slaps his hand between them, forcing them open again. 

“You're not one of them?” He asks cautiously.

“Fuck, do I look like I am? Just let me into the elevator. Please.”

The man's eyes flash and Jeph realizes too late that it may have been a bad idea to insult the guy with the gun.

After that everything happens very fast. 

The man yells at Jeph and pushes him back hard. Jeph, taken by surprise, stumbles and falls. There's the sound of four loud shots. Jeph squeezes his eyes tightly shut, praying for it to be over fast if anything. One of the women screams and Jeph thinks, “This is it.”

Then a pair of hands grabs him and yanks him forward. Jeph finds himself on the floor of the elevator and turns around just in time to see two of the creatures get up from the floor, blood and flesh spattered against the wall. They howl at the closing doors. One of them actually runs forward, reaching with its hand, but then the doors shut with a metallic clank and the elevator starts moving.

Jeph sits on the floor, feeling disoriented. He hadn't even heard anything coming at him from behind. His head hurts, temple throbbing, but before he can order his thoughts, the elevator slows down again. 

“Out of my way,” the man with the gun says, and one of the women in jogging suits pulls at Jeph's shoulder with surprising force, getting him to sit against one of the walls under the panel of buttons.

The doors slowly open and Jeph prepares for another attack, desperately hoping the guy is a good shot, but nothing happens. They all stare out at an empty hallway until the doors shut again, giving them back their relative safety.

Jeph carefully stands up, waiting for the world to stop spinning. He can feel a bruise forming at the back of his head but otherwise he feels fine.

“Thanks,” he says to the man with the gun, who looks at him and nods curtly.

“Don't mention it. I'm Matt, that's everyone else.” He gestures at the other people in the elevator. The teens in the corner don't even turn toward him, but the two women nod at Jeph in a direct mirror of Matt.

“Are you good to fight?”

Jeph shrugs and presents his coat hanger. Matt looks at it and nods again, like he didn't expect anything else. He clicks his gun open and puts more bullets in it from out of his coat pocket.

“Well, you better get ready to use that thing,” he says, “because we'll probably make a few more unwanted stops on the way down to the lobby.”

Jeph looks at the coat hanger in his hand and then at the closed elevator door, waiting for the next floor.

*

 

They've made it all the way to the fifth floor, when the old man dies. 

Jeph hadn't paid much attention to him and the teens. He saw the wound on the old guy and knew that it was a lost cause. It had looked much like the head wound of the man Jeph met earlier, hours and hours ago, when he first opened his hotel door. His eyes had already had that milky sheen.

Jeph had hoped they'd make it all the way to the lobby though.

The old man dies with a wet gasp, blood flowing over his lips. The teens, two boys and a girl, start screaming at each other, pushing at the old man, willing him to please wake up. Jeph swallows hard and glances at the numbers on the display above the elevator door. 

The elevator passes the fourth floor without slowing down.

Jeph turns back around to the teens, who are crouching over the old man. One boy is holding his head up while the other one slaps the man's face increasingly harder, telling him to wake up, god, please wake up. 

The two women have moved back and away against the elevator door behind Jeph. Matt lowers his gun to check if there is any way the old man might still be alive.

Nobody pays any attention to the quiet ping of the elevator as it stops on the second floor. 

The doors slowly slide open and, before anyone can do anything, hands are stretching inside in a deafening roar of disfigured faces pressing in against the opening elevator doors.

Matt and the teens start screaming at the same time one of the women starts yelling for help. There are arms around her throat and lower body, pulling, pulling her into the mass of creatures.

“Andie, Andie!” The other woman screams the name at the top of her lungs, trying to reel her back in by her arm.

Jeph looks on, horrified, as the doors open further and further, giving the zombies more leverage. They look nothing like humans at all. Half fallen off faces, sunken in eyes that all have the milky sheen to them. Their voices are reduced to burbling noises and the smell, the smell is the very worst thing.

There's a sudden shot as Matt finally springs into action. It hits one of the things holding its arm around the screaming woman called Andie and it backs away, but two more arms surface, pulling even harder at her throat.

“The door, man, get the door!” Matt screams in between reloading, and Jeph finally breaks out of his stupor, hits the close door button so hard his fingertips hurt and finally the doors seem to be complying. But the woman is still stuck in between them and they won't close if they don't get her inside fast enough.

Jeph rushes forward and starts whacking at arms and legs and the things' faces with his coat hanger. It's not working at all, so, without thinking, he starts pulling at them, trying to pry their arms loose; his hands come away with bloody pieces of flesh and next to him the woman is still howling in pain and fear as her friend tries to pull her back inside.

It's Matt who makes the decision. He pushes Jeph out of the way, pulls the other woman away from her friend and gives Jeph a look, the look. Jeph steps up and pulls her aside and all resistance immediately goes out of her, maybe because she knows what comes next, as Matt steps up to her friend, lodged between the two elevator doors. The things are already biting huge chunks out of the side of her neck.

For some reason Jeph can't look away as Matt hesitates another moment, then takes a deep breath and sets his gun to the woman's, Andie's, head and shoots. Blood splashes out the side of her head and then suddenly there is a loud, terrifying tearing noise as the creatures pull her now motionless body backwards. The doors snap shut and the elevator begins to rumble down.

There's dead silence in the elevator. 

The teens have quieted down. Jeph can't see them, but he can feel they're watching him. The woman in his arms is quietly sobbing away. And Matt is just staring at the door, gun limply hanging in his hand, shoulders going up and down as he breathes heavily.

This is how they reach the lobby.

*

 

The door opens into hell. 

There's smoke everywhere, screaming people, things chasing them and an open fire crackling. The fire alarm's going but the sprinklers don't seem to work and the overall sound of it all is deafening enough to make any conversation almost impossible.

“We can't get out here,” Matt screams at them, “It's way too fucking dangerous. Let's try and see if we can get out through the basement.”

No one objects, all of them still too shocked from earlier and the sight in front of them. Matt hits the close door button.

As the doors slowly close, Jeph turns around and sees the old guy move. His hand jerks and his eyes are now a deep milky white. Jeph acts without thinking, untangling himself from the weeping woman, and takes a deep breath.

Then he jumps forward and squeezes out through the closing elevator doors.

“Hey, what the, are you insa--” Matt screams but the last syllable gets cut off by the doors of the elevator closing with a decisive thud. 

Jeph doesn't look back. He sticks to the wall and tries to use it as a guide towards the door, to the outside world. He knows he needs to find Bert and Quinn too, but deep down he knows that that's almost impossible. 

That maybe they're already lost or maybe they've already fled.

He dodges two fighting men who seem to be grappling over control for a baseball bat. He keeps a watchful eye out for the creatures, but no one seems to take note of him in the general chaos of the lobby. The smoke is starting to make his eyes water and Jeph coughs, holding his arm in front of his face, trying to keep going in the general direction of where he assumes the lobby entrance is.

The coughing gets worse and soon he can barely see anything because of the smoke. The fire must be close to the door but he can't seem to locate it. With his hands running over the walls, Jeph finds the lobby bar, a solid black mass of wood. He figures if he can soak a cloth or something in water it'll help with the smoke. He has no idea how that shit works, but people in the movies do it all the time.

Jeph takes a cautious look over the top of the bar, but all he can see are black-gray clouds of smoke, so he decides to take a chance and quickly slides around the corner behind the bar.

There's already someone there, cowering underneath the liquor cabinet. Jeph swings back his fist and hits the guy without thinking. He can't take any chances now and the grunt his hit garners proves him right. He's grappling for his coat hanger he dropped somewhere on the floor when the guy jumps on him and starts hitting him with his fists, strong fierce blows.

“Fuck you, you motherfucker,” he yells and Jeph has to take three more punches to the stomach before he realizes he knows the voice.

“Quinn?” he chokes out.

The guy stops with his fist mid-air, then leans so close they're almost face to face and a wave of relief washes over Jeph when he sees that it's really actually Quinn.

“Fuck me,” Quinn whispers and then he flops down on Jeph and hugs him awkwardly.

“We thought you-- Well, we couldn't find you in your room, so we thought you were--” Quinn pulls back and rolls to the side. He doesn't finish his sentence, but Jeph gets what he's saying anyway.

“You said we?”

“Yeah. Oh, right, Bert. He's around here somewhere. He said he'd find us a weapon. Something about a baseball bat.” Quinn runs a hand through his hair and Jeph sees that he's holding his wrist gingerly, a long black bruise stretching along his arm.

Jeph nods, even though Quinn probably can't see him in the smoke. He has to cough again, so he misses half of Quinn's next question and only hears, “Dan.”

“He's fine,” he gets out, “I called him. He'll meet us at the bus. Actually.” Jeph pulls out the phone from his pocket and tries to convey to Quinn that he'll call Dan.

Suddenly, out of the smoke surrounding the bar, Bert comes stumbling towards them. He's actually carrying a baseball bat, holding his arm. 

Jeph immediately forgets all about the phone. 

“Man, this fucking thing bit me, motherfucker,” Bert yelps. He's cradling his arm against his body, looking incredibly pissed. Then he sees Jeph and his whole face lights up. 

“Jeph, you fucker!” He leans forward and gives Jeph a full body hug. When he pulls away, his blood is all over Jeph's jacket.

Jeph swallows hard. When he looks up Quinn's looking at him, a strange look in his eyes, darting a glance over to Bert's arm and back again.

“What is it, Jeph?” He sounds like he probably knows the answer but wants Jeph to tell him it's not true.

Jeph wishes he could do it. He shakes his head and Quinn looks away. 

“Hey motherfuckers, any of you got a band aid?” Bert looks between them, clearly trying to figure out what is going on, waiting for them to clue him in.

It's all Jeph can do not to take his shoulders and shake him, yelling, “Why, why did you have to get so fucking close? Didn't you know they'd bite you?”

Because of course Bert hadn't known and of course he'd gone after the things, because stupid fucking Bert always has to try and understand everything and get fucking baseball bats to defend them.

Quinn finally takes pity on Bert and pulls him aside, grabbing a tablecloth from nearby and wrapping it around Bert's arm and tying it up as best as he can.

“We have to go,” Jeph tells them, nervously looking over his shoulder. They've stayed in one place for too long and he's starting to feel exposed. By the looks of it Quinn, and to some extent even Bert, seem to understand what he means, because they immediately nod and get up when he does.

“Let's just make a break for it. We'll try to get to the bus. Dan will meet us there.” 

Bert and Quinn nod. Bert looks serious and then, after a brief moment of hesitation, hands Jeph his baseball bat. Jeph's really not sure he's the right person to wield it, but with his injured arm Bert won't be able to hit properly. Jeph tries not to think of the other implications the wound on Bert's arm has.

He counts to three, just because it gives him enough time to gather his thoughts, weighs the bat in his hand. Then he starts running. Over the noise in the lobby he can't hear if Bert and Quinn are following, but he trusts them to stick close and hopes for the best.

The smoke seems to have gotten a bit lighter, but Jeph's eyes are still tearing up. He desperately wants to get out of the place, but he knows that running straight into the smoke in hopes of finding the exit won't work at all, so he sticks to his original plan of tracing the wall.

They jog along at a brisk pace and when Jeph looks back he can see Bert cradling his arm and biting his lip, determined look on his face. Quinn's bringing up the rear, always looking over his shoulder. It's a surreal image; their concert from the previous day seems lifetimes away and yet Jeph feels how much Dan is missing. He'd probably be a lot better with the baseball bat than Jeph.

“Watch out!” Bert yells and Jeph turns around in time to see a crazed looking man come at him, screaming bloody murder. Jeph takes one look at him, closes his eyes and takes a giant swing. There's a sickening crunch and Jeph opens his eyes to see the man falling on the floor, spasms going though him in little waves. Jeph only realizes he's stopped running when Bert's pushing at him. “Keep going, Jeph, come on, hurry.”

He wills his feet to move and they run along without further incident, until Jeph finally, fucking finally, sees the sliding doors that lead outside. There's two of the creatures by the door, bent over the dead body of a woman, and Jeph tries not to look as he rushes by, hoping, praying, they won't notice them.

Then he's squeezing through the glass doors, Bert and Quinn hot on his heels, and breathing fresh air for the first time in what feels like forever.

“Fuck, that feels good,” Bert rasps and then starts coughing, bending over at the waist.

When he straightens back up there's a thin stream of blood running down his cheek. Jeph meets Quinn's eyes again, who shakes his head, don't tell him yet, not yet.

Jeph takes another deep breath and looks along the street. A car is careening towards them from the distance, but apart from that there's only burning wreckage around them. They probably won't be able to take the bus out of here, but he told Dan to meet them there and maybe once they're all together they can figure out how to get out of this fucking shithole of a town.

“The parking lot's one block down and then left for two blocks,” he tells Bert and Quinn. “Let's walk fast, stick to the walls of the buildings. That way at least no one can surprise us from behind.”

He looks at them and sees the smile tug at the corner of Quinn's lips before he realizes what he's said. Bert starts giggling and then Jeph surprises himself by laughing too.

They stand like that in the middle of the burning street with people screaming and running past them and laugh. “From behind,” Bert gets out and that starts them off again, hysterical laughter shaking their bodies.

Quinn gets a grip first, looking somewhere over Jeph's shoulder, face going dark. “We should get going,” he says and when Jeph turns around the out of control car is a lot closer, getting chased by a hoard of zombies. That sobers them up enough to choose a clear path through the wreckage and then start walking down the road as quickly as possible.

None of them says another word.

*

 

Surprisingly enough the walk towards the bus is almost uninterrupted. Once or twice Jeph has to swing his bat at the monsters but it's—it's become weirdly okay. He doesn't see them as human beings anymore. They're just things to him now. In that way, it's a little like his favorite jump and run games on Xbox. Though, he's not so far gone he doesn't realize these used to be real people, like him and Quinn and Bert and Dan. 

But it's easier to take if it's all just a game, if this is his last game and he's about to top the high score, defeating Dan.

They round a corner and the parking lot comes into view. And there at the very front is their stupid tour bus, with the big logo that says “THE USED” in blood red ink. Jeph's pretty sure he can hear angels sing at the sight or something equally cheesy.

“Fuck, yeah,” Quinn says emphatically, now running next to him. Jeph has to agree and turns to tell Bert to get a move on, they're almost there.

Bert's not behind them anymore.

Jeph stops dead in his tracks until he sees Bert, a little ways off, lying on the street. Quinn, who stopped a few seconds after Jeph, starts running first and skids to a halt next to Bert.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says under his breath and in his head Jeph hears that stupid Fuck Song Quinn and Dan invented.

It keeps running through his head as he shoves the baseball bat at Quinn and pushes him out of the way to lean over Bert. He's not breathing anymore and his eyes have got a thin milky sheen.

“Breathe, you motherfucker,” Jeph yells at Bert, because what a fucking bad time to have a heart attack. Jeph leans down and breathes air into Bert's mouth, tries not to think beyond the first aid hand gestures. Tries not to think about the fact that this is probably not a heart attack at all. That it's probably something a lot more serious.

“Quinn, can you--” Jeph looks up to ask Quinn to time Jeph's chest compressions on Bert's ribcage but Quinn's frozen in shock looking somewhere behind Jeph. Half turning, hands still hovering over Bert's chest, Jeph sees a group of about five men, heavily armed.

They have fierce looks on their faces but it's only when they raise their shotguns that Jeph realizes in one crystal clear moment, what he must look like, with his bloody face and bloody clothes, leaning over the dead body of Bert.

He understands the moment Quinn starts yelling; though what exactly he's saying Jeph can't make out.

The first shot throws him back on the pavement. The second one rips through Jeph's body like a hot, red fire. He can't breathe and his heartbeat sounds like it's beating straight in his ears. He sees Quinn gesticulating wildly at the advancing men.

Jeph coughs and that only makes the pain worse. There's water in his mouth, wet and warm, and he tries to understand where it came from. He turns his head to see if Bert's alive but his eyes get caught on a figure running towards him.

It's Dan.

Behind him comes a hoard of the things, zombies, real fucking zombies, climbing over a car with an open door that Jeph swears wasn't there when they walked past before.

It's getting harder to think now and he tries to focus on Dan coming towards him. 

Small Dan, then slightly bigger Dan and then large Dan filling his whole field of vision.

“Jeph,” he says, sliding down onto his knees.

And suddenly Jeph knows that this is not right.

“This is not how it's supposed to be,” he says but the words come out only as gibberish, bubbling up from between his lips without meaning.

“This isn't it. No, it's wrong, it's wrong, can't you see it,” he tries again, but there's only coughing and Dan holding his head, telling him to be quiet. Behind his back the zombies have almost caught up to them. Jeph can still hear Quinn shout.

The pain is almost unbearable now, spreading through his whole body. Already Jeph can't feel his left side anymore, can't quite move his eyes or even think it. But he knows, knows that something isn't right.

This is not how it ends.

 

**interlude (2)**

Dan's already awake when Jeph slips into his bunk without saying a word. Dan makes room for him as if it's the most natural thing in the world. Like they do this all the time.

“What's up?” Dan says, trying to sound casual. He tries to hear if Quinn or Bert woke up but he can only hear Jeph breathing and his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“I dreamed some fucked up shit, but I can't remember it.”

Dan furrows his brows. It almost sounds like Jeph wants to say more but, before he can ask him about it, Jeph speaks again, this time more hesitant, like he's making the words up as he goes along. 

“Listen, I know this is gonna sound weird, but...how come we've never kissed?”

Dan feels his heart speed up. He wipes his hand on his boxer shorts, stupidly wishing he was wearing more clothes. “You mean on stage?” He has a hard time keeping his voice to a whisper.

Jeph's quiet for a long time. 

“No,” he finally says.

Dan swallows and tries to think of something to say to that. Next to him, Jeph's moving around, feet kicking against the blanket. He raises himself up, face right in front of Dan's. He looks thoughtful.

Then he leans forward and kisses Dan on the lips.

It's chaste as far as kisses go and Dan can't quite shake the feeling that they've done this before, even though he would definitely remember if they had. Almost certainly.

Jeph pulls away and the assuredness from earlier seems to have passed.

“So.” He looks at Dan, completely at a loss.

Dan hesitates for a moment, then leans forward and kisses Jeph again. Already it feels kind of – normal. Jeph squirms around, lips pressing against Dan's. He makes a soft, annoyed noise and Dan realizes his hand is stuck between their bodies.

He turns on his side, knocking Jeph in the face with his elbow. 

“Sorry, sorry, fuck.” 

Jeph lets out a breath. He's flushed. “Hold on, stay still.” 

Dan stops moving and Jeph lies on his side, pulling Dan closer towards him. He slips his arm under Dan's head, putting his hand on Dan's side and pulls their hips together snug.

Dan feels Jeph's dick hard against his and makes a little ah noise, feeling embarrassed by how needy he sounds.

“Fuck, fuck.” Jeph sounds a bit awed. Dan looks at him and then slowly moves his hips, rubbing his dick against Jeph's.

They look at each other and then Jeph smiles, a small, private smile Dan's never seen before. 

Jeph curls his hand around Dan's hip tighter, his fingers brushing against skin where Dan's shirt is riding up. He starts hitches his hips in slow, controlled circles, sweet friction as their dicks rub together through thin layers of fabric.

It feels fucking fantastic and Dan tries to pick up the rhythm. He doesn't not quite manage but Jeph doesn't seem to care. He makes a quiet noise and tries to get closer to Dan.

They start kissing again, sloppily now, nothing like the controlled slide of lips from before.

Dan couldn't really say how they got to this place; logically, it makes no fucking sense. But it feels good and he just goes with it, lets Jeph take the lead.

They move together, grunting softly. Dan tries hard not to be too loud, but it's proving difficult. He feels his toes tingle, first sign of orgasm, but it's not quite enough to get him off, the friction more tease than anything.

“I can't--I--” He doesn't quite know how to say it, but Jeph gives him a look and nods.

“Yeah,” he says and rolls sideways, still pressed tightly against Dan's side. There's the rustling of fabric and when Dan cranes his head he can see Jeph's hand wrapped around his dick, pajama pants only barely slipped down. It looks really fucking hot and if he weren't wound so tightly Dan would push Jeph's hand away and do it himself, but the urge to get himself off is stronger, so he raises his hand up to spit into it.

Jeph stops him before he can do it and leans sideways, darts his tongue out and licks a long wet stripe up Dan's hand from wrist to fingertips. Then he makes a face like he swallowed something bad. “Your hand tastes like crap.”

Dan grins, but he feels his cheeks flush hot, eyes still on Jeph's lips. Awkwardly, he fumbles his dick out of his shorts and tries not to poke Jeph with his elbow again. He feels a little self-conscious about this, weirdly enough, but then he feels Jeph move next to him, sees him work his dick and suddenly it doesn't feel silly at all.

“You're a fucking pornstar, Howard.” There's a slight tremble in Dan's voice, but Jeph laughs anyway.

If this were any other time and any other person, Dan would feel embarrassed by how fast he comes. As it is, the orgasm feels like a release, like things slotting into place and all the other corny things one could possibly say. Next to Dan Jeph comes too, quiet uhn uhn uhn noises segueing into heavy breathing.

They lie side by side and before Dan can stop himself he's grabbing for Jeph's hand. It's sticky with come, but it doesn't matter, not really.

“I dreamed I died,” Jeph says quietly.

Dan squeezes his hand, probably harder than is comfortable. “It's okay. That's not how it ends.”

Jeph turns his head to the side. He looks at Dan for a long time, but he doesn't pull his hand away.

Finally he says, “Okay.” 

He takes a deep breath and Dan looks up at the ceiling of his bunk with the strange feeling of certainty that they changed something profound. He thinks it's the post-orgasm high talking, but maybe it isn't. Right now it doesn't matter.

“Okay,” Dan says. “Okay.”

 

**C**

“Okay, on three,” Bert says and there's that glint in his eyes he always gets when they're about to do something tremendously stupid.

This could easily get them thrown out of the hotel, but Quinn's bored and Bert gave him the puppy dog eyes. Plus the bartender is kind of cute, a redhead who's been looking at them like she's trying to figure out where she knows them from. Quinn hopes she thinks they're in a popular boy band. That's always fun.

He walks up to her casually, hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” he says.

She looks up and gives him a distracted smile. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Gin and tonic,” he says, trying not to smile, because she called him sir. No one ever does that. Almost as an afterthought he adds, “No ice,” just because that always sounds impressive; he actually doesn't care either way.

She's already turned back around, grabbing a bottle of tonic from a high shelf, deftly mixing his drink.

The lobby's mostly quiet, only a few people milling about. Quinn shoots a quick glance sideways to where Bert is not so secretly hiding behind a palm tree. Quinn shakes his head and Bert gives him a thumbs up.

Sliding onto one of the barstools, Quinn taps his fingers on the hardwood paneling of the bar. This is one classy fucking hotel and he feels a little underdressed. He should've probably at least bothered with underwear. From behind the welcome desk two neatly dressed men look at him, but get distracted by a group of elderly people wheeling up to them, effectively blocking their view.

Perfect.

The bartender puts the drink in front of Quinn and is about to turn away, when he grabs for her hand. She gives him a look that is equal parts anger and intrigue and Quinn thinks that's a good start.

“Sorry,” he says, “but I didn't get your name?”

She looks at him like she can't believe he's giving her that line, but Quinn gives her his most charming smile and, unlike Bert's most charming smile, it's actually pretty good. The bartender still looks at him a bit dubiously, but she finally seems to decide he's harmless and says, “I'm Becky.”

Without missing a beat Quinn, says, “Oh, seriously? I knew I recognized you from somewhere.”

He smiles at her like they've been friends forever. Becky's face changes from cautiously friendly to angrily suspicious in the blink of an eye. Quinn waits another moment, then he goes in for the kill.

“You were at the signing right? After the show? I remember you wore our band's shirt and had the cutest smile.”

Quinn grins at her, hoping, hoping that he judged her right as one of those band fans who can never really remember what the people in their favorite band actually looked like.

And sure enough, her whole face lights up with surprise and she yelps, “Oh, my god, it is you!” Her face turns a light color of red and she slaps her hand over her mouth. “I'm sorry, it's just so exciting to meet the drummer of Fake Plastic Trees.”

Out of the corner of his eye Quinn can see the little decorative palm tree shake as Bert no doubt tries to keep the laughter in. Quinn, on the other hand, is a pro and keeps a straight face when Becky holds out her hand to shake his. 

He's a natural at this.

“I loved your last CD so much,” Becky tells him, eyes shining. Now that she's identified him as one of her idols she's a lot more talkative than she was before. Quinn half listens to what she's saying, interjecting little half-truths at appropriate moments. The first lie is really the only important one, after that people spin the rest of the story for themselves. All Quinn has to do is sit there and play the part.

He watches carefully as Bert finally slips out from his hiding place and casually walks around the bar. If he doesn't at least get a bottle of Jack Quinn will be pretty pissed. But Bert knows him well enough, because it's the first one he grabs, holding it triumphantly over his head, giving Quinn a thumbs up.

For a second Quinn's distracted. He always gets distracted by a happy Bert. He grins back and doesn't realize Becky's turning around to grab something, a move that puts Bert directly in her line of sight. 

Becky and Bert both freeze at the same time, staring at each other. Bert's still doing the thumbs up, bottle of Jack held high in his other hand, his expression rapidly going from oops to oh, shit to fucking busted. Quinn can only see half of Becky's face, but he clearly underestimated her, because not only does she look pissed off, she also seems to know that Quinn has something to do with this.

Quinn slides from his barstool and takes one last quick sip from his gin and tonic. He gets ready to run as soon as he knows Bert's clear, but then there's a deafening crash behind him and the next moment the fire alarm starts going so loud Quinn's ears are ringing with it.

He turns around in time to see a huge fireball rush towards the entrance and then, like in some terrible horror movie, a huge mass of, well, monsters, creatures, something start pouring into the lobby. 

Quinn only sees their vacant faces, some half rotted off, others still decidedly human and he freezes in place. His brain is trying to make sense of the chaos unfolding in front of him and he almost gets bitten by one of the things rushing at him head first, but Bert chooses that exact moment to appear next to him, bottle of Jack tucked under his arm.

“Behind the bar. Quick, c'mon,” Bert says, pulling Quinn out of harm's way. And that makes no sense at all to Quinn, because he wants to run outside, away, not stay here. But this is Bert, so Quinn follows him behind the bar without questions. Becky's still standing there, frozen in shock, like her brain just stopped processing the events after her encounter with Bert.

Bert is pulling at her arm. “Get down,” he whispers urgently, although over the chaotic level of noise no one would hear him if he spoke normally anyway.

Becky takes one look at him and Quinn, then she scrambles away like they're the monsters, not the things coming in from the door, and makes a run for the lobby entrance. Quinn looks over the countertop to see if she gets out okay only to watch her stumble right into the arms of two of the monster things. For a moment she struggles, but then she seems to get paralyzed by fear.

Quinn looks away when they rip open her throat, sinking blunt teeth into the skin and tearing at it viciously.

“Holy fuck, what is this?” Quinn says, more to himself, but Bert's already shaking his head, taking a long drag from the bottle of Jack.

“I have no fucking clue, but if it weren't happening to me it'd be pretty fucking cool.”

Quinn has to agree. “It's almost like one of those outbreak movies where everyone goes nuts.”

Bert's eyes light up and he nods. “Yeah, like the one, you know, with the blonde girl who had huge boobs and turned into this ugly monster-thing?” Bert mimics the boobs with his hands in front of his body, but breaks off instantly when there's a loud crash as a body flies over the bar and smashes into the opposite wall.

It's one of the creatures Quinn saw coming into the lobby and it gets up so fast Quinn's heart skips a beat. There's blood dripping from its mouth like drool and it cocks its head and stares at them unblinkingly. Quinn notes that it's wearing a suit and realizes it's one of the fucking guys from the front desk right as the thing charges them.

Everything happens so fast Quinn only sees Bert move in a blur, but one moment the thing, the guy, whatever, is jumping at Quinn and the next it's lying sprawled out in front of them with the broken-off bottle of Jack protruding from its neck. It gurgles, still fucking alive, and Quinn fumbles around behind himself, finds another bottle and, without really thinking it through, smashes it on the floor and moves forward.

The thing looks at him with huge, dead eyes even though it just fucking attacked them and looks about three second from getting up again to try and kill them. Quinn just can't do it. He's holding the broken bottle, hovering undecidedly next to the thing. 

Before he can act one way or the other, a hand wraps around his ankle and pulls hard. Quinn flails his hands around in the air but loses balance anyway. The thing is trying to reel him in, bloody hand gripping his ankle so hard it hurts. Quinn swings his arm around but he can't reach anything.

And then Bert appears next to Quinn, steps right up to the thing and stomps hard on its arm. There's the crunch of bones breaking and when Quinn pulls his leg away hard, there's a tearing sound and he's free, the creature's hand still attached to his ankle, blood dripping from the severed end. 

Quinn panics, trying to pry it loose as fast as he can and almost misses it when Bert calmly picks another broken bottle up from the floor and shoves it right into the things chest, head turned sideways to avoid blood spattering into his eyes.

Quinn gets the hand off and throws it as far away as possible, sliding away from the dead thing until his back hits the bar.

“Fuck me,” he gets out and Bert looks at him, still so incredibly calm, but Quinn knows him well enough to tell that he's afraid too.

“We need to get out,” Bert says, and Quinn couldn't agree more.

“Let's find a weapon and then get out.”

Bert nods. “What about Jeph and Dan?”

Quinn blinks at him. He hadn't even thought of his friends yet. “I'll try to call them, but if I don't reach them--”

“Yeah,” Bert says, and his voice wavers a bit at the end. They know they'll have to leave either way, with or without them. It doesn't look like they can stay behind the bar until this all blows over. Whatever the fuck this is.

Without talking about it, Bert gets up and crawls to the side of the bar, looking around the corner to survey the situation. He's cowering and on his face Quinn can see what he's already hearing. Chaos and, well, lots of fucked up shit. He fumbles his phone out and dials Jeph first. He doesn't see it when Bert gives him a final look, almost as if he's saying goodbye.

*

 

The smoke is getting thicker by the second and Bert has trouble seeing anything, let alone the monsters he's trying to avoid or anything that could pass for a decent weapon. It reminds him of the days when he was on ten different drugs. This has the same confused, up-is-down sort of feeling. He doesn't like the recollection but at least he knows how to deal with it, so he ducks, trying not to walk into walls or objects.

Every so often something or someone appears out of the thick grey mist around him. One time a crying woman sees him and runs right into the opposite direction. There's a big bite mark on her face that's leaking something white that looks like paint. Bert manages to avoid three of the monster things; lucky for him, they stumble over to two dead people on the floor before they notice him, but it's a close call.

Finally, after what seems like forever, just when Bert decides the risk he's taking is not worth any weapon, he sees a baseball bat on the floor. It almost looks like it should be glowing like a holy grail, the way it's just laying there as if it's waiting for him, half-covered by a broken flowerpot and scattered earth. Bert looks around but can't see anything except more smoke. He hears muffled screams and over it all the fire alarm is still going.

He bends down to pick up the bat.

Something heavy hits him from behind and Bert flies forward, landing hard on the floor. He swallows some of the soil and coughs, trying to get air. His arm hurts and when he gets his head up enough he can see that one of the shards cut his skin open. He doesn't have time to stifle the bleeding, because the heavy thing on top of him starts moving, starts clawing at him.

Bert shouts and struggles, trying to turn around and get his hands free to fight back. He twists his upper arm, hair getting caught between his shoulder and the floor. He can't get a proper look at whatever is beating up his back, tearing at his clothes, but he blindly starts hitting at it, trying to get it off.

The body on top of his emits a deep, throaty growl just as Bert manages to get his hands under himself and turns, coming face to face with a woman. Or rather, what used to be a woman. There's a big gash on her head and a big chunk of her scalp is hanging sideways, exposing bone. Bert retches and barely has time to rip his hands upwards before the woman, or what used to be a woman, viciously starts to strain forward trying to bite his face. Her teeth gnash together, spittle spattering Bert's chin.

Her breath smells like bile and something toxic and Bert has trouble focusing, weighed down by her ferocious attack. He feels his arms shake with the effort of holding her at bay. There's no way he can get at the bat; it's still too far away.

Then, from one moment to the next, something red and fast crashes into the woman, whipping her head sideways with a dry crunch. She slumps off of Bert and he pushes at her body until he can get free and struggle up. He turns toward where he thinks the bar is and runs off.

Or at least he tries to, when a heavy hand lands on his shoulder, holding him in place. Bert panics, because, fuck, he just escaped one of these fucking things. He wheels around and starts blindly hitting at the thing, which isn't even fighting back in its mindless pursuit of Bert's flesh.

“Bert. Bert! Fucking stop it, motherfucker!” 

Bert freezes, because he recognizes that voice. Cautiously, he lowers his hands and steps forward, blinking through the fog. 

Dan looks back at him, baseball bat dangling at his side. He looks exhausted.

“Fuck, Dan!” Bert feels so incredibly relieved he briefly forgets about the pain radiating from the cut on his arm.

Dan gives him a one armed hug. He smells like smoke and something rotten.

They pull apart and Dan gives Bert a curious look. Bert wipes at his face and realizes he's still covered in soil.

“Where are the others?” Dan sounds almost as if he doesn't want to know the answer.

“Quinn's behind the bar. I don't know about Jeph.”

Dan nods once and then a small smile appears on his face. “Knew I'd find you close to the booze during the apocalypse.”

Bert giggles. “Gotta have your priorities straight.”

Dan's smile widens a fraction, then his eyes dart sideways like he saw something move and he immediately gets serious again. “Let's get going.”

Bert orients himself as best as he can, then starts walking into the smoke cloud. As they pass the dead woman that had jumped on him, Bert notes a little red beauty case lying next to her. There's a dent in the metal casing. 

Bert gives Dan a look. 

Dan shrugs. “I had to be quick. You were about to be eaten by a girl.”

*

 

Bert's not sure how, but he finds his way back to the bar and when they slip around the far end, making sure no one saw or followed them, there's someone else sitting next to Quinn.

It's Jeph.

Bert stares at him, not quite trusting his eyes. “Fuck, yeah,” is what he finally says and slides onto the floor next to Quinn, grabbing a bottle of something and uncapping it.

When he looks back up, Dan is hugging Jeph, full body hug, still holding onto the baseball bat. He's whispering something in Jeph's ear, but Bert can't quite make out. Dan closes his eyes briefly, face open and raw. Bert looks away and hands the bottle to Quinn who gives him a look but doesn't say anything.

“We need to get to the bus,” Jeph says and Bert turns back toward them. They sit down close to Bert and Quinn, Dan's knee brushing Jeph's. “It's our best shot. Dan left his car a couple of blocks away so he wouldn't attract more of these fuckers.”

“The bus is closer anyway,” Quinn says, putting the bottle aside and brushing glass shards from his pants leg. “If we get there, we can decide where to go next. Who the fuck knows how far this thing's spread.”

“Fucking zombie motherfuckers,” Bert says, and they all look at him. He shrugs. “It's what it is, isn't it?”

“You think?” Jeph looks like he really doesn't want to think about it too much, like he saw things he'd rather forget. There's a bloody bruise on his temple and scratches all over his face. 

“Whatever they are, I don't wanna find out how they're gonna kill us,” Dan eventually says, and they all agree on that.

“What weapons do we have?” Quinn asks.

Dan holds up the baseball bat, Jeph produces a coat hanger from somewhere and Bert holds up a broken bottle. 

Quinn nods. “If we stick to the wall we can get out through the glass doors.”

They all get up, Quinn glancing over his shoulder nervously to see if anyone or anything's approaching the bar. There's nothing to be seen. 

Quinn turns back around and there's a brief moment of general hesitation, then Dan takes a step forward, Jeph follows and then Quinn. 

Bert throws his hands around them and bows his head into the circle. “Let's fuck some shit up, motherfuckers.” 

“A-fucking-men,” Quinn says and Bert can hear the smile in his voice.

Bert stands on his toes and gives each of them a kiss on the head in quick succession. Then he pulls away and gets ready to step in line behind Quinn. He takes a deep breath, waiting for Quinn to get them moving.

Behind him he hears Dan say, “Get ready for The Used, motherfuckers.”

“Let's piss on their happy zombieday parade,” Jeph adds.

Bert can tell Quinn's smiling as he moves forward and slips out from behind the bar.

Bert follows him. Just before he steps out from behind the safety of the wood paneling, he catches Jeph as he reaches for Dan's hand and squeezes it. Dan gives Jeph a quick smile in return.

“Let's do this,” Dan says and Bert starts running into the smoke after Quinn. 

Dan and Jeph are right behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> ake Plastic Trees is a Radiohead song, the Fuck Song can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCE4ahRNbEc) and in case you're interested: While the zombies in this fic don't completely subscribe to either the Romero or the Russo rules, they are most likely to resemble Dawn of the Dead remake zombies. 
> 
> Immense thanks go to woollysocks and sinuous_curve for a very last minute beta and cheerleading, even though they knew very little about The Used. I'm so grateful for you guys, seriously!
> 
> Thanks also to earlofcardigans who not only made an excellent mix but also encouraged me from the very beginning. I'd also like to thank desticex who just gets me and pretty much translated the fic from my brain into the most amazing two pieces of art to ever exist. 
> 
> Finally, thanks to every single person on my flist who encouraged me, even though I changed my main plot about six times (seriously, I have a 10k word doc with discarded ideas/scenes!)


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